1. e Welsh data
Licensing mismatches
Zooming out
.
Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh
.
Pavel Iosad
Universitetet i Tromsø/CASTL
pavel.iosad@uit.no
Old World Conference in Phonology 8
January 20th, 2011
Marrakech
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 1/34
2. e Welsh data
Licensing mismatches
Zooming out
Plan of talk
Licensing mismatches in Welsh
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 2/34
3. e Welsh data
Licensing mismatches
Zooming out
Plan of talk
Licensing mismatches in Welsh
What it means to be a head
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 2/34
4. e Welsh data
Licensing mismatches
Zooming out
Plan of talk
Licensing mismatches in Welsh
What it means to be a head
Abstract prominence
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 2/34
5. e Welsh data
Licensing mismatches
Zooming out
Plan of talk
Licensing mismatches in Welsh
What it means to be a head
Abstract prominence
Against headless feet
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 2/34
6. e Welsh data
Licensing mismatches
Zooming out
Plan of talk
Licensing mismatches in Welsh
What it means to be a head
Abstract prominence
Against headless feet
Conclusion
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 2/34
7. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Outline
.
1 e Welsh data
.
2 Licensing mismatches
.
3 Zooming out
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 3/34
8. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Vowel system: North Welsh
e monophthongs (diphthongs are quietly ignored)
Height Front Central Back
High iː ɨ(ː) uː
ɪ ʊ
Mid eː oː
ɛ ə ɔ
Low a ɑː
Lax:tense = short:long
Also paradigmatically:
(1) a. [ˈtoːn] ‘tune’
b. [ˈtɔna] ‘tunes’
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 4/34
9. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Stress I
Most stresses are penultimate if possible
(2) a. [ˈtoːn] ‘tune’
b. [ˈmənɨð] ‘mountain’
c. [məˈnəðɔɨð] ‘mountains’
Final stress is semi-exceptional:
Stressed suffixes:
(3) a. [gwaˈkaɨ] ‘to empty’ ([ˈɡwɑːɡ] ‘empty’)
b. [kəmˈraɨɡ] ‘Welsh language’ ([ˈkəmrɨ]
‘Wales’)
Unstressable prefixes/proclitics:
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 5/34
10. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Stress II
(4) a. [əmˈlɑːð] ‘tire oneself ’ ([ɬɑːð] ‘kill’)
b. [əmˈlɑːɨn] ‘ahead’ ([ən + blɑːɨn] ‘in front’)
Exceptional antepenultimate stress in borrowings, which revert
to the native pattern when affixed (omas 1996, p. 789):
(5) a. [ˈtɛlɛfɔn] ‘phone’
b. [tɛlɛˈfoːna] ‘phones’
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 6/34
11. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Vowel alternations
Some instances of [ɨ] surface as [ə] in non-final positions
(6) a. (i) [ˈdɨn] ‘man’
(ii) [ˈdənjɔn] ‘men’
(iii) [dəˈnoldɛb] ‘humanity’
b. (i) [ˈmənɨð] ‘mountain’
(ii) [məˈnəðɔɨð] ‘mountains’
So do most instances of [u]:
(7) a. (i) [ˈtrʊm] ‘heavy’
(ii) [ˈtrəmaχ] ‘heavier’
b. (i) [ˈpatrʊm] ‘pattern’
(ii) [patˈrəma] ‘patterns’
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 7/34
12. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Lack of vowel alternations
But not all [ɨ]’s do thus:
(8) a. [ˈpɨr] ‘pure’
b. [ˈpɨrɔ] ‘purify’
Non-alternating [u] is very rare and comes mostly from
borrowings.
Similar alternations occur with diphthongs, but these are not the
focus here
Fair bit of theoretical literature: Allen (1975); Cartmill (1976);
omas (1984); Awbery (1986); Bosch (1996); Hannahs (2007);
Green (2007)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 8/34
13. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Some background
Most analyses suppose it is a centralization rule, so something
like the following:
Rule /trum-aχ/ /dyn/ /dyn-jɔn/ /pɯr-ɔ/
[+rd] lowering /trəm-aχ/ /dən-jɔn/
Centralization /dɨn/ /pɨrɔ/
Output /trəmaχ/ /dɨn/ /dənjɔn/ /pɨrɔ/
is works
On the other hand, this is simply the last 500 years of Welsh
historical phonology
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 9/34
14. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
e length contrast
ere is a length contrast for vowels in stressed syllables:
North Welsh: ultima (= monosyllables)
South Welsh: ultima and penultima
Examples from South Welsh:
(9) a. (i) [ˈdiːn] ‘man’
(ii) [ˈɡwɪn] ‘white’
b. (i) [ˈaːraɬ] ‘other’
(ii) [ˈkareɡ] ‘stone’
In North Welsh, penultima only allow short vowels:
(10) a. [ˈaraɬ] ‘other’
b. [ˈkaraɡ] ‘stone’
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 10/34
15. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
e distribution of length
Where length is possible, it is truly contrastive only in a small set
of contexts
Otherwise, it is largely predictable depending on the following
segment (with some variation)
Length distribution Following segments
Long /b d ɡ v ð f θ χ ∅/
Short /p t k/ + clusters
Contrast /m n ŋ l r/
Long in ultima,
/ɬ s/ (SW only)
short in penultima
Exhaustive study in Awbery (1984)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 11/34
16. Basic data
e Welsh data
Penultimate stress
Licensing mismatches
Vowel mutation
Zooming out
Vowel length
Informal analysis
Vowel length is driven by minimum binarity and constrained by
maximum binarity: stressed vowels must lengthen if they can
Mix of coerced and distinctive weight (Morén 2001)
Predictable length: coerced weight (no analysis offered here for
reasons of focus)
Unpredictable length: underlying (non-)moraicity
South Welsh: moraic binarity
North Welsh: syllabic binarity, coda becomes important if a
bisyllabic foot is unavailable
Binarity is commonly assumed as a property of heads
E. g. M--W (Bye & de Lacy 2008)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 12/34
17. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Outline
.
1 e Welsh data
.
2 Licensing mismatches
.
3 Zooming out
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 13/34
18. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
So why is all this important?
Penultima show head-like properties in that they tend to binarity
Ultima show head-like properties in that they resist vowel
reduction and/or are loci for augmentation
Where is the head of the word in Welsh?
Proposed answer:
e head is (normally) on the penultimate syllable
Being a head means being binary
Ultima bear prominence, which is a feature
Final-syllable effects are feature co-occurrence effects
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 14/34
19. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Head seeks dependent
Proposal (not really new): being head means being a possible
locus for head-dependent asymmetries
Asymmetries have to do with licensing more structure:
Branching (Dresher & van der Hulst 1998); also “visibility”
Licensing features/elements, as in GP/DP (Harris 1997; Cyran
2010, you name it)
In our case, it’s branching: a head foot has to be binary, leading to
lengthening or weight-by-position effects
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 15/34
20. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Prominence is a feature
e concept of prominence is in principle separate from the
concept of a head
ough they coincide in many languages
Attachment of features to prosodic nodes is nothing new:
Many approaches to vowel harmony
Tones, especially in Element eory with the H and L
Laryngeal features: Kehrein & Golston (2004)
Prediction: pure prominence-related effects are like feature
co-occurrence effects
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 16/34
21. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Example representation
Ft σ [Prom]
µ. µ µ
m ə n ɨ ð
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 17/34
22. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Example representation
Ft σ [Prom]
µ. µ µ
m ə n ɨ ð
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 17/34
23. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Example representation
Ft σ [Prom]
µ. µ µ
m ə n ɨ ð
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 17/34
24. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Final-syllable effects again
Looks a lot like vowel reduction in non-final syllables
(11) a. (i) [ˈdɨn] ‘man’
(ii) [ˈdənjɔn] ‘men’
b. (i) [ˈtrʊm] ‘heavy’
(ii) [ˈtrəmaχ] ‘heavier’
I abstract from a lot of the detail here: see Hannahs (2007) for the
nitty-gritty
*u, *i → ə in non-final syllables is a historical process all right
(Jackson 1953)
But is it a good reason to postulate the same relationship in the
modern phonology?
Most of the literature says yes
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 18/34
25. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
For underlying [ə]
Hannahs (2007): [ə] is not a reduced vowel in any meaningful
sense:
Freely appears in stressed syllables
Freely appears in syllables of various complexity
No tendency for [ə] to function as a default vowel
Analysis:
Non-alternating [ɨ] is just /ɨ/
Alternating [ɨ] is in fact an underlying [ə]
mənəð *[ə]-Fσ I-IO(vowel feature)
a. mənəð *!
b.
26. mənɨð *
c. mɨnɨð **!
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 19/34
27. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Issues around underlying /ə/
For fairness’ sake…
e schwa is slightly deficient: cannot be long, cannot appear in
hiatus (Awbery 1984; omas 1996)
However, I agree with Hannahs’ insight: /ə/ as the underlying
vowel makes sense
Further evidence: in a small area in SW Wales (NE Pembs., SW
Cards.), the constraint *[ə]-Fσ is inactive or less active,
giving forms like [ˈbər] ‘short’ (Awbery 1984, 1986; Wmffre 2003),
which doesn’t really make sense in a vowel-reduction theory of [ə]
Further parallel: in many dialects, a similar restriction against
final-syllable /e/ is in force (Awbery 1984)
But can we make the constraint less descriptive?
Also: the /u ∼ ə/ alternation probably should not be dealt
with in this way, and is a bona fide reduction process
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 20/34
28. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Pitch prominence
A different solution is proposed by Bosch (1996)
She assumes the penult bears rhythmic prominence…
…while the final syllable bears pitch prominence
Pitch prominence licenses more contrasts
is seems to make phonetic sense:
Extensive pitch movement on the final syllable is a well-known (or
at least widely-cited) feature of Welsh (for an overview, see Ball &
Williams 2001)
Also Welsh English (Walters 2003)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 21/34
29. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Pitch prominence: the true story
e information comes mainly from non-instrumental dialect
descriptions
Final high pitch may be used by speakers as a cue to accent
location…
But its appearance is far from categorical
It is in fact confined to certain pragmatically defined contexts
For more detailed descriptions, see omas (1967); Rhys (1984);
Williams (1999); Ball & Williams (2001)
30. Also Walters (2003) describes it as just one possibility among
many for Welsh English
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 22/34
31. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Pitch prominence is not word-final prominence
e schwa alternations are quite categorical
For most lexical items, they are obligatory
A few cases described as being in “free variation” (don’t ask)
But still the high pitch is nowhere near being so obligatory
High pitch might be be more of a phrase-boundary tone than
something word-related
In particular, Rhys (1984) describes it as stretching across
unstressed syllables to the right edge (image from Rhys 1984,
p. 142)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 23/34
32. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Prominence is abstract
Not all pitch-prominent syllables demonstrate the “correct”
schwa alternations
Nor is pitch prominence an obligatory factor in the schwa
alternations
To my knowledge, nobody has conclusively demonstrated that
word-final high tones are not one (or both) of
Phrase boundary tone
Non-phonological spill-over due to peak delay (cf. Myers 2000)
33. is last possibility is intriguing given the oen short duration of
“stressed” vowels (Williams 1999)
It appears that whatever drives the schwa alternations in the
final syllable, it is abstract, not something so easily read off the
phonetics
Prominence is a feature . . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 24/34
34. e Welsh data
What is a head?
Licensing mismatches
Prominence in Welsh
Zooming out
Summary: Welsh
e penultimate syllable is the locus of binarity-related
restrictions ⇒ head foot
e final syllable is the locus of featural restrictions ⇒ abstract
feature drives markedness phenomena
/ə/-raising: feature co-occurrence drives a faithfulness violation
/u/-lowering: feature co-occurrence creates an exception from
across-the-board lowering
35. Aside: if something reacts to the features of Welsh /ə/, it must in
fact have features
ese data show that both syllables can lay claim to being
singled out by the phonology
So there must be two ways to single out prosodic constituents
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 25/34
36. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Outline
.
1 e Welsh data
.
2 Licensing mismatches
.
3 Zooming out
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 26/34
37. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Why divorce?
Not a new idea at all
ough normally prominence is represented by the grid: cf. Hyde
(2001); Vaysman (2008)
Arguably this is a necessary evil in parallel OT
Serial theories allow a large class of headship–stress mismatches,
via readjustment and/or tier conflation
Without recourse to these devices, OT arguably cannot avoid a
representational approach
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 27/34
38. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Headless feet
A well-known type of mismatch is where iterative footing is
necessary to derive stress placement, but there is no surface
evidence for the non-head feet
Cairene Arabic (see Hayes 1995 for references)
Given the lack (?) of other head-dependent asymmetries, this can
be represented by headless feet
(12) a. (ʔin)(kása)⟨ra⟩ ‘it got broken’
b. mu(dar)(rísi)⟨t⟩ ‘teacher (f., construct state)’
is works if there is no evidence for head-dependent
asymmetries that have nothing to do with stress
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 28/34
39. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Feet with unstressed heads I
A different type of mismatch is found when feet are necessary to
derive main stress placement (like in CA), there is no secondary
stress, but there are other asymmetries
Several cases recently discussed by Buckley (2009)
(13) Kashaya
ʔah(qoˈlaː)(madaː)(dadu) ‘to get longer and longer’
Just one stress, but unstressed heads undergo iambic lengthening
Classic branching asymmetry (Dresher & van der Hulst 1998)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 29/34
40. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Feet with unstressed heads II
In other cases we find head-dependent asymmetries in licensing
Latvian (Buckley 2009 citing Kariņš 1996): initial non-iterative
stress, but variable vowel deletion and segment duration confirm
footing
McCarthy (2008) proposes right-aligned trochees to explain
Havlík’s Law in Common Slavic (every other yer vowel deletes),
yet there is zero evidence for iterative stress
In extreme cases, there is no (main) stress at all, but with plenty
of other evidence for footing, as in Kera (Pearce 2006): intensity,
duration, tone spreading and vowel harmony all converge on the
same foot structure
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 30/34
41. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Head-stress mismatches
Both previous types of mismatches can be accommodated if
either stress or head status is “invisible”
e CA type of data is explained by recourse to headless feet
e Kashaya/Kera type of data can be explained by assuming
non-trivial phonetic implementation of headship
e important prediction is the possibility of a complete
mismatch, where headship and prominence can be disentangled
I propose that Welsh is exactly a case of this type
e Welsh data show that different phonological
representations are needed
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 31/34
42. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
More cases
One candidate is Roman Italian (Garvin 1989; Krämer 2009)
Stress retraction counterbleeds raddoppiamento
(14) [(ˈsa)(ra ɡ)ˈɡrande] ‘will be big’
Stress is retracted due to *C
43. If stress is feature-like, *C is just another guise of OCP
e position of the head does not shi, so the binarity
requirement persists
e foot is not “headless”, and there is no need for OO-M,
contra Krämer (2009)
For more potential cases, see Vaysman (2008)
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 32/34
44. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Conclusions
Headship is about asymmetries
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 33/34
45. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Conclusions
Headship is about asymmetries
Prominence is about markedness and faithfulness, and more
specifically about features
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 33/34
46. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Conclusions
Headship is about asymmetries
Prominence is about markedness and faithfulness, and more
specifically about features
ese need to be represented separately in the phonology
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 33/34
47. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Conclusions
Headship is about asymmetries
Prominence is about markedness and faithfulness, and more
specifically about features
ese need to be represented separately in the phonology
Many if not most languages show perfect alignment, but this is
not the only option
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 33/34
48. e Welsh data
Divorcing headship and prominence
Licensing mismatches
Mismatch types
Zooming out
Conclusions
Headship is about asymmetries
Prominence is about markedness and faithfulness, and more
specifically about features
ese need to be represented separately in the phonology
Many if not most languages show perfect alignment, but this is
not the only option
Diolch yn fawr!
. . . . . .
Pavel Iosad Explaining licensing mismatches in Welsh 33/34